


My Way

by ForevermoreNevermore



Category: Almost Human
Genre: Alice in Wonderland References, M/M, Worried John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-06 21:14:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1111600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForevermoreNevermore/pseuds/ForevermoreNevermore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dorian sneezes and unravels the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Way

Dorian walks into the precinct, and it smells like coffee and oil. It's completely normal for a place such as this, but just distinct enough that it is reminiscent of a home. Then there's the scent of cheap aftershave, 5.95 at the local store, distinctly John.

He's reading a file standing up, hands placed on the table. He mouths the words, but Dorian hears nothing. It's a bad stance for his back and he has warned the man several different times of that fact. The spinning chairs are ergonomic for a reason.

As he passes, Dorian says, "back."

John slumps, but doesn't straighten. It softens the harsh line of his shoulders through the chords of his neck rolling into his jawline, but won't relieve the pressure. John swings his head to shoot Dorian an amused glare. "How many years has it been, and why has it taken you so long to figure out I'm gonna keep standing like this?"

It's been two and a half, but Dorian doesn't say so. He merely shrugs and takes advantage of his unused and abandoned chair. It still conforms anew with each sitting, a testament to exactly how little use it gets. John follows his short journey, then gives that chuckle that is strangely more shoulder movement than laugh. Dorian propels himself forward to examine the papers spread out himself, only to glance back up to find John still looking. It's a strange look he's wearing, a different one from the faces Dorian was used to receiving from the gruff man.

Then just like that, it's gone, and John is pointing roughly at a passage.

"C'mon," John mutters, even through Dorian had only just sat down. "We've got a crime scene to look at."

__________________

It's an odd bough of winter where a person can never tell if it's supposed to be hot or cold. Some call it the beginning. Dorian calls it useless and annoying. John would feel the same way if he'd stop sneezing. And what giant sneezes they are, too. The man stills, his whole body twisting and wiring itself up for an explosion that makes Dorian flinch every time. His eyes are red and they match his nose. It's ridiculously amusing, almost verging on one word Dorian vowed to never actually think near the man but can't quite keep away as he sniffles miserably and snubs his 't's'; cute.

He feels John's knifelike gaze like he can read his mind, but Dorian wouldn't put it past him. Or perhaps he's gotten to know that particular expression on his face. 

Dorian wonders what it must feel like to have a cold. He imagines it would tense up the cranial space, pressure building near constantly. A pain between the eyes, achy. He wonders, because he feels these things and it doesn't quite make sense. He's scanned all databases for any information on 'android colds', then found nothing. It doesn't add up, no matter how the equation is formed. So, with all these thoughts wiring, he steps out of the car and a strange sensation begins to build in his nasal cavities. 

Dorian sneezes and unravels the world.

John snaps his head to look at him, eyes wide and confused. No one else notices, as it's the time of the year that sneezes are just the soundtrack to life. But John practically slides over the hood of his car, his precious car, to get over to him.

"What the hell?" he asks, and Dorian's not entirely sure but that might be worry in the wrinkles by his eyes. "I didn't know you could get sick!" John has a most interesting way of making many things sound much bigger than they were, but perhaps this wasn't one of those moments. 

"I don't think I can..." But he doesn't know if it is a question, or a comment, or an earth-shattering discovery. Just what the world wanted, to give sick-days to androids.

"I've got something for that." It's a woman's voice, but before he can even turn to address the high probability that that statement is false he feels something jab sharply into his neck.

"Hey!" John says. The needle is removed, but nothing happens. Dorian turns in time to see her dissolve into the crowd surrounding the crime scene. John looks like he wants to go after her, but instead pulls Dorian close and examines his neck. It's a most interesting sensation, someone's hot breath fanning across receptors and neurons, activating them in a strange way that simply touching cannot do. A thumb rubs over the injured spot, but there is no pain. Just a reassuring pressure.

Dorian's allowed back just far enough so they can look into each other's eyes. John's eyebrows are raised as he searches obviously for some sort of malfunction.

"You okay?" He asks. Through the hand still against his neck, Dorian can feel a heightened pulse. It's... strange.

"I am perfectly fine." Dorian answers, and John nods distractedly. His hand slides away and he wonders if John even knew they had moved from his side. it had been what seemed like an automatic reaction for him. 

"What do you think she put in you?"

Pushing the event over for later, Dorian falls into step beside John and runs a sensor over his features. Whatever had been injected had been issued with extreme accuracy, right into one of his main oil delivery lines. There's nothing out of the ordinary for where it has reached, his right arm, left, his toes moved fine.

There is a blip on his radar, and something heaves in his systems. Dorian's step falters, not enough that it sends him to the ground, but enough that John slows to a stop.

"What is it?" John asks, but it enters Dorian as if through a filter. His vision is crackling at the edges, glitching along the lines of information. John's name rolls to question marks and Dorian sees grey tunneling out his vision. His system is shutting down, jsut as the liquid in his oil reaches his hard drive.

 _Dorian_. He hears John, but he can't answer him. _Dorian!_ It's more insistent now, closer. Sounds like John is standing above him. Then-

"Dorian!" It's right in his ear this time, and it jolts him awake. John's there by his head, on all fours, with a strange little smirk on his face. "Bout time. Thought I was going to have to turn you off and on again."

Dorian frowns. His vision scanners still have a row of question marks where John's name should be. And it's not exactly like they were where Dorian last remembers. It was like no where he'd ever seen. An orange haze covers everything like a sheet. Absently, Dorian runs a hand through it just to find it whirl around his hand.

"Where are we?" When Dorian turns back to John he's sitting in a chair, one leg folded under the one that dangles on the ground, slowly rotating the chair one way then back the other. There had been nothing there.

John shrugs, and it's with his whole body. "Memories. Backed up memories for a guy trying to find them. His mind. But why you're here I can't even comprehend." His leg overextends and pulls the leg of his pant up to reveal flesh. So, a pre-accident John. Factory settings.

He shouldn't be here.

"You don't by any chance know how to get out of here, do you?"

John stops his movement. "I know ever way but out." Oh, how helpful. "Tour?" It's a long tense moment before John stands and offers his hand to Dorian. The moment's lightened by their hands passing right through one another.

The look on John's face sobers. "Ah."

"It seems there will be no time for tearful embracing." Dorian jokes, but he sort of fumbles the delivery and attempts to stand. It appears as though all of his systems are back in working order, save his vision software. 

__________________

Dorian finds this John quit curious.

He's not, actually, that much different from the John Dorian knows now. Different, of course, from the one he'd first known. More open, more receptive. He doesn't close up when prodded. But this one did speak somewhat in circles, which might've just been Dorian's harried systems talking.

"And over there..." John jerked his hand out, pointing surely to their left. Dorian followed the pointing finger, only to see more orange fog. There was a beat before John spoke up. "My mistake." And he pulls his hand back to point to their right. Dorian follows the finger's trajectory, then finds the fog slowly bleeding to colors and shapes until it forms the picture of a small apartment, a cake, and a small boy with a shock of black hair.

Dorian starts. There's a woman, and she places a hand in the small boy's hair. 

 

"Happy Birthday, John." Dorian makes to step forward, alarm ringing dully. But as he steps forward, the scene changes and blurs. It's so sudden it jolts Dorian into nearly stepping back, but John stops him with a look.

"I wouldn't go backwards if I were you. A being can only move forward." Dorian digs his heel to keep from swaying, taking in the scene before him. A grubby school, a small boy being beat up on. A large dark-haired boy, with a jaw that's just beginning to look familiar, steps in.

"Cause if I wanted to improve my social standing, I'd beat up the smallest kid in the school." The bully takes a flying swing as Dorian takes his step forward. He doesn't know if the punch lands, and he feels like it could go either way. But, he knows, truly, who won.

Dorian feels like a trespasser as he walks, so he tries to walk a little faster. Not too fast, through, as his companion seems to enjoy their walk. He strolls more than he walks, legs lazing out and stomping on the ground. It's a lackadaisical John that he sees. There's not a slouch, and the small little smirk he gets when he doesn't think anyone's looking is absolutely the same. But Dorian sees it, and it's strange. It's not the John he knows.

Hearing his name amongst the flash book of memories is enough to jolt him into stopping. His foot steps in the direct center of a tile and he watches his own rebirth, John awakening him with a sharp jolt of electricity. It's an awful, outsider's type of deja vu. So Dorian keeps walking, speeding up as they no doubt near the end. As with the previous thoughts, he catches bits of color and sound bites. It becomes a cacophony of gunshots and 'Dorian!' and that one time that John spilled coffee in his lap on a high speed chase, the anniversary of their first year as partners. Dorian halts here for his own desire, watching as Detective Stahl brings that small cake over to their table, a weird smile on her face. In curling blue writing, a tad on the unperfected side, are the words 'Congrats for not Dyin-g' the g underneath the main sentence as the n juts into the upper ring of icing. It turns out to be a hologram. She said it was because of Dorian that John was probably still alive so he deserved the cake more. And since he didn't need to eat...

Their second year got a bigger, actual cake.

"You know, he still kinda holds a grudge against her for that," John grunts as they move past the scene. It's strange to hear this John talk about himself like he was separate from Dorian's John.

"You don't consider yourself and John the same person?" Dorian asks, purposefully loping further past a particular bloody fight- _Dorian I swear if you ever do that to me again, if you think getting shot is fucking funny, it'll be putting the damn thing in you next time._

_Is that a euphemism?_

John's strange smile widens. "We used to be."

Something juts in front of Dorian's foot, catching it so that he falls to the ground. He just barely catches himself on his hands.

A table crashes to the ground in front of his face, glasses of water crashing and shattering up on a familiar beige colored couch. The table's black and shiny, a familiar scratch on its back right leg where a cat got into John's apartment and scratched up almost every stick of furniture. But the cat had just happened last week.

"No you can't!" John's leaning against his bar, hands fisted and phone nearly cracking in his grasp. Dorian sees the anger in the sneer of his mouth, but there's a touch of desperation on his lips.

His companion was still walking. The scenes change slow at first, then faster. There's a rage of John running through the events that follow the phone call, one more glass shatters, this time in his hand. Blood dripping. The scene skips. Faster it whirs until it seemingly short circuits. John's snarl vibrates through the thick air.

"Well then I'll have to make sure you can't get to him." A gunshot cuts off his voice.

John rocks back on his heels and slides his hands into his pockets.

The quiet is unnerving, and Dorian slowly picks himself off of the nebulous floor. After the ruckus of the past scenes, the silence echoes quite loudly. He crosses the distance between himself and the other John, and notices some shapes forming an actual scene in the far distance. It flicks and distorts like a poorly made television, only standing still when Dorian is close enough to brush shoulders with John.

"What's that?" Dorian asks, voice hardly a whisper for fear of upsetting the fog. It was an unnecessary fear, but everything about this situation seemed unnecessary.

John clicks his tongue, and his eyebrow did the _thing_. "My way."

Dorian looks closer, taking a hesitant step forward. John makes no move to stop him, so he moves with a little more determination.

The image is of John, and Dorian turns to make sure that the other John's where he left him. He is. So this was a different one, a memory or a future or a thought or something along those lines. It's just John for a moment, but as he makes to sit a chair blossoms under him in a bleeding of color, and his hands move around in a familiar ritual, checkemailsipcoffeecomplainaboutcoffeeeventhroughhemadeit, the objects themselves ink into being at his touch. The coffee mug just barely has a chance to form before it meets his lips. But he smiles this time, a contented one hardly ever seen.

Then he looks aggravated, head turning as he looks for something. Dorian slips over carefully so he can see more clearly, and John turns to look at him.

The contented grin falls into a strange look Dorian _knows_ he's seen before, but he just can't place it. Maybe if he can only see who he's making it at-

Dorian turns to see the person behind him, but all there is is that orange haze. He keeps turning so he makes a full circle, but that scene is gone, too.

Dorian's at a loss, so he just stares at where the image-John had been.

"Do you know who he was making that look at?" Dorian asks the fog. He blinks and John's lounging on a couch, eating nachos. A strange place indeed.

"Not really." And he licks a glob of cheese from his thumb. "That was more of a concept at the back of John's mind. As I am not his current mindset, I can't really say what he's thinking. But," And John looks a bit wistful, "I remember looking at someone like that."

"Who?" Dorian asks. John puts a hand under the plate of nachos and flips it deftly into the floor. It hits the fog and keeps falling. He stands, and the couch fizzles away.

John's face gets very serious very fast, and he speaks in a voice that sounds much closer than he actually is. "Wake up, Dorian!"

Dorian blinks in disorientation, checking his systems and finding them all working fine. Everything spins like it's being shaken. John slips from a wide smile to that worried grimace like a glitch.

"Dorian!" The voice is in his right ear and he turns to see nothing there. John before him shrugs.

" _Dorian!_ " It's orangeorange _black_ white and Dorian is awake. He's sitting up in what looks an awful lot like the basement that he woke up in last time. There's Rudy, messing away with his technology. John's sitting in a chair, elbows propped up on the thin metal arms. His head is bowed in sleep, back arched.

"Back." It has two side effects; both of them wholly entertaining. Rudy jumps, hitting his head on the magnifying glass he had been peering through. John snaps his head up so fast it knocks him back a bit, rocking him off of his front two chair legs. Like the past John rocking back on his heels.

Rudy slides over in his rolling chair, beaming.

"Oh thank God, I didn't think I'd be able to pry him out of here with a crow-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah-" John grouses, kicking Rudy back to his desk. Then he rubs his neck.

"I've warned you..." Dorian says. John just gives his best grumpy face and sits back in his chair.

"Yeah, you have." John admits, but now he's fighting back a smile. The question marks are gone in Dorian's vision, and it reads as plain as possible; John Kennex. "But, since when am I going to start listening?"

Dorian swings his legs out so they dangle off of the table. He's looking John in the eye now.

"I figure if I keep after it, eventually you'll get fed up with my insisting and actually take my advice."

"Fed up with you? I couldn't dream of it." Dorian matches his grin and hops onto the floor. Apparently, his systems weren't all the way up yet. His right knee joint isn't ready for his weight, and it collapses smoothly. But, the floor doesn't hit him as fast as he figures it would.

John's there, a hand on Dorian's chest, another on his shoulder folds into his chest. They bump and once again Dorian feels the strange synapse connections of breath, huffed slightly faster than usual, symptoms of a heightened heartbeat. John's very close indeed, and there are specks in his eyes. 

"You know, you're going to have to stop falling down on the job," John huffs, gently righting Dorian. His knee joint kicks into gear and Dorian stands straight. John's hand lingers.

"Sorry you were offline for so long, and I solved the problem of your 'cold'." Rudy swoops between them and gestures to the screen. Dorian pulls away from John.

It's a schematic of his makeup, his systems and wires all pulsing and blue. Something red pulses between his eyes, and Rudy swishes it aside to make it bigger. It reads as a glitch.

"You see, there were things added in with the emotions that we never even really thought of. Sort of like sympathy pains. John was all allergic near you, and your systems picked up on that. Plus, whatever was injected into your systems aggravated it. No other side effects so far... as for how long you were out..." Rudy's hand gestures limply, at a loss, and he looks at John. "I can't explain it. You were functioning correctly, all systems were a go... but..." _You weren't_ , Dorian finishes mentally. Rudy may have smiled evilly, were it in him. As it was, it was fairly maniacal. He points a finger at John, "buzzed around like a mother hen, that one." John is scandalized.

"Look-" John starts, raising a finger to match Rudy's, but then he stops, he stills, and he just lets his jaw hang open for a few seconds before visibly deflating. If he had ever frowned a deeper frown, Dorian wasn't around for it. "You were out for a long time, man."

Rudy turns back to his technology, something close to a pleased expression pressed onto his features.

"Well, we're leaving," John says pointedly, turning to leave. Dorian catches up when John stops by the door. He catches his look, all wide hazel eyes and an expression just shy of begrudging acceptance. 

"I want noodles. You want noodles?" He doesn't wait for Dorian's obvious answer before turning back to Rudy. He repeats himself louder. "I want noodles. You want noodles?"

It takes Rudy a moment for it to dawn on him that John is actually asking him. He turns in his chair, eyeing John somewhat lost for a second.

"Uh, yeah..." He puts down the tool in his hand. "Yeah." A smile breaks out on his face, and he messes with a few of his things for a moment. John's smiling, but will kneecap the person who calls him on it.

"Well, you finish up in here and we'll be out in the car." And he slides his hands into his pockets, rocks back on his heels, and leaves the room, holding the door behind him for Dorian to walk through.

"You know, ever time you get hurt it doesn't have to send you into a dramatic coma. What is this, the third time?" But he knows exactly how many times it is. Dorian catches the strange pulse that walks beside him. "I'd be more than happy to carry around bandaids and chewing gum."

"Honestly, I'd prefer the comas."

"Yeah, well, make it shorter next time." John doesn't pitch his words like their meant to be a question, but Dorian catches it as one.

"Sure thing." John gets to his side of the car first. Dorian opens his door, and pauses. John has opened his door and stalls. When Dorian glances up to see what the matter is, they lock gazes. There's that expression again, like someone has aired out all of the tense lines of his face, the ones ingrained and welded there from life on the force. It _had previously_ been an unfamiliar expression, but there was no one behind him now and Dorian knows exactly what it is.


End file.
